Taxes

It is not forbidden to former socialist countries to reduce the weight of the state and drastically reduce taxes, especially on businesses. This was done in Sweden and Denmark, where unemployment is lower than in France .

The statistics tell us that recession is over. Yet, while this has triggered tapering in the USA, it has also prompted a new of ECB promises to keep interest rates low. In the meantime, EU authorities do not seem how to deal with the world of banking, which is far weaker than meets the eye.

GDP in the EU area seems to be growing, but at a very slow pace. Although financial market remain sanguine, the real estate sector presents a mixed picture, with bad news coming from heavily indebted countries. While waiting for better news, the authorities are devoting their attention to the rating agencies.

Six years after the crisis exploded, experts still find it difficult to come up with satisfactory criteria to evaluate the banking industry. The good news, however, is that regulators are gradually becoming aware of how banks succeeded in circumventing the rules.

A short presentation of IREF ‘Yearbook on Taxation in Europe’ Series

Among the many ways to understand the climate of opinion and the culture of a country, looking at its fiscal system is one of the most rewarding. Sure, fiscal systems almost always rhyme with complexity; each system bearing the weight of its history. But the attempts to change the system, to give it a new direction, are highly instructive.

This long-debated concept by policy makers and economists is coming back. That is because the Government believes that prosperity cannot be recovered without a strict “austerity policy”. But it actually means higher taxes only. Yet, the latest concerns of the French National Assembly on a substantial fall of tax revenues for 2013 raise the question again: has France reached the top of Laffer’s curve?

After publishing the real figures of the tax exile as part of the IREF research, this book tells the story of these exiles who are leaving not only for tax reasons, but also because they had enough with this France. A country where more than half of the population is living thanks to public money!

This book is written as a testimony from daily facts encounters by a tax lawyer, whose main activity is to support those who wish to leave France. Among them: industrial, retirees, entrepreneurs, young people, old people… This is an important part of the French wealth that goes … For the first time, a tax lawyer talks openly!

As shown in the Report of the IREF on Taxation in Europe, many countries have lowered their corporate tax. The UK is among them. The corporate tax will gradually decrease: 23% in 2013/14, 21% in 2014/15 and 20% in 2015/16.
It must be an example for countries as France…

1,130: here is the number of Americans who gave up their citizenship and left the US territory. Taxation made them leave.
Who said the US was a tax haven? It is true that tax pressure on individuals and companies is much lighter than in France. Furthermore there is a real tax competition between the States. Yet, it is not sufficient.
Many American taxpayers left because of Obama’s policy and tax increases. Thus, in Q2 of this year, 1130 US taxpayers gave up their citizenship because of taxation.
It is twice as much as the whole year 2012, and ten times more than in 2007, one year before Obama’s election.

WP 2013-07. Executive Summary The traditional argument in favour of decentralization focuses on tax competition and on the quality of public expenditure. In a sentence, it is argued that a…

Attacks against wealthy people are still going on in spite of the fact the Welfare-State is plundering taxpayers. In a recently published book, sociologists – I should say ideologists – Michel and Monique Pionçon-Charlot are criticizing those they call “deliquents”. No, wealthy people are not offenders or delinquent. They are above all those who create jobs.